1. Field
The described embodiments relate to electronic devices. More specifically, the described embodiments relate to configuring a codec for communicating audio data using a Bluetooth network connection in electronic devices.
2. Related Art
Many modern electronic devices provide applications and services that can be used for transmitting and receiving audio data (e.g., speech). For example, these devices can provide cellular phone services, voice messaging services, video chat, voice-scanning/interpreting applications, and other such applications. For example, a transmitting electronic device can receive speech audio as spoken input from a user (e.g., using a microphone), process the speech audio to generate digitally encoded audio data, and transmit the digitally encoded audio data to a receiving device. A receiving device then receives the digitally encoded audio data, processes the digitally encoded audio data to generate the speech audio, and outputs the speech audio to a user of the receiving device.
These electronic devices commonly use networking subsystems within the electronic devices for transmitting and receiving speech audio data. For example, these electronic devices can use networking subsystem with a cellular network interface (UMTS, LTE, etc.), a Bluetooth interface, and/or a wireless network interface (e.g., a wireless network such as described in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards 802.11). Many existing electronic devices that use Bluetooth (e.g., with Bluetooth headsets, speakers, etc.) for communicating audio data can unnecessarily limit the sampling rate of the audio data at, e.g., 8 kHz instead of 16 kHz, and can therefore limit the quality of the audio data that can be reproduced by a given device. For example, although some applications (e.g., video chat applications, voice recognition applications, etc.) can provide higher sampling rates (e.g., 16 kHz, 22 kHz, etc.), when using a Bluetooth connection to communicate encoded audio data, the electronic devices may limit the application's audio sampling rate or may otherwise reduce sampling rate/audio quality when processing speech audio in preparation for transmitting the audio data using the Bluetooth interface. Using a lower sampling rate for the Bluetooth interface can result in a suboptimal user experience.